You're in the middle of a review cycle, and you have noticed that someone has the wrong role, goals, and competencies - one of your employees has also just changed their job, and to top it all off, another employee has their old role instead of their new one assigned. But when you go and try to change their role in PiiQ, it isn't reflected in the review cycle - can we change this information during a review cycle?

Yes, of course! You absolutely can make it possible to rate your employees when their content changes, even if a review cycle is already open. The trick is to make use of PiiQ's uniquely powerful ability to run more than one review at the same time. This strategy is best used in the following situations:

• An employee enters a review cycle with the wrong role
• A promotion or other organizational change requires new goals and/or competencies for an employee

PiiQ, Preserving your data, and Versioning 

What is Versioning? Each time a review cycle is started, a "snapshot" is taken of your performance framework (roles, goals, competencies, and certain rating slider configurations) at that time. PiiQ was designed this way to allow admins to set up multiple review cycles at any given time. Changes made once a review is open don't affect current or past reviews. Why does this matter? 

- Prevention of data loss. Even if you accidentally delete a role, your current and historical review data won't be harmed. They live in their own Versions and can only be changed through the cycles directly (such as with Content Library Live Updates)

- You'll be able to review an and employee for both roles they held during the year for a more complete performance evaluation

- You can begin preparing for upcoming reviews without worrying that you might change an ongoing cycle. For example, you could begin goal setting for Q1 of a 2020 review while the Q4 review of 2019 is winding down.  

So what does this mean for day to day usage? Changes made to your performance framework will only affect upcoming review cycles. One recommendation for avoiding a situation of an employee having an outdated role is to only open review cycles when you need them. Creating a review too far in advance can increase the likelihood of an organizational change causing conflict.

Creating a review for employees with changed roles

A great way to handle employees that need to be rated on different goals/competencies is to create a secondary 'Promotions' or 'Role Change' review cycle that runs concurrently with your ongoing review cycle. This will allow an admin user to update an employee's role, and then add them into the secondary review cycle with their updated content! 

Here's how to update an employee's role and add them to a review cycle for role changes:

1. Create the new role under Settings > Performance Settings > Roles
   • NOTE: If the user's new role already exists and has been assigned to Goals and Competencies, skip to step 3. This might happen if the employee is moving into a role you've created previously.
     
     
2. Assign the roles as needed to their goals and competencies under Settings > Performance Settings > Goals & Competencies
   
   
   
   
3. We now need to update the employee's role from the People page. This will allow the new review cycle to pull the user's new role.
   
   
   
   
4. Create a new Review Cycle for promoted employees under Settings > Performance Settings > Review Cycles.  Click Remove All when selecting participants. We only want employees to be in this cycle if they have a different role from the one being used in the ongoing review.
   
   
5. Add the role-changed employees to the new cycle by typing their name in the area that shows "Enter a name to add people"
   
   • If another employee changes their role while the promotion cycle is active, you can simply complete step 3, and add them into the secondary! They will have their new role assigned!
     
     

Once the steps above are completed, you will have a secondary and concurrent review cycle that will allow others to be added in with their new roles! Sweet victory.

Next Steps and Other Considerations

Here are some things to keep in mind when using this strategy:

• You can chose to remove the employee from the standard review if they don't need to be rated on their old set of goals and competencies. Click Edit Review for the standard review and remove them by clicking the X next to their name. This will mean they'll only appear in the secondary review you created.
• Depending on your email notifications configuration and the dates you set, managers and employees may not be notified that they are taking part in the new cycle. Be sure to send out a communication to avoid confusion. It's a good idea to call out using the cycle selector on the dashboard to switch between the review being worked in. 
• Since the employee will be in a separate cycle, they won't appear in the same reports or 9-box grid as other employees who are in the standard cycle. Making use of the cycle selector will help your managers (and you) pull the reports needed.